Quest for Fire – A caveman movie done right

Quest for Fire starts out with scrolling text that explains that in prehistoric times man could not make fire. He had to steal it from nature or from others. This is the only understandable language in the film.

After this the viewer is treated to a completely visual adventure. We meet a tribe of prehistoric humans. They are evolved enough to appear human, but they still have animal like characteristics. They yell and holler like monkeys and apes. Ron Perlman (possibly the only recognizable actor here) does a great job of mimicking a chimp or gorilla as he eats. The humans are dirty and they stay that way. This is not your average Hollywood affair with prehistoric babes with perfectly white teeth and clean bodies. These people look like our ancient ancestors.

At the beginning the tribe has just been attacked by another tribe of much less evolved ape-like humans. They have also lost their fire. This begins the quest for three chosen tribe members to obtain a new fire. The three trek across the wilderness. They have to come up with clever ways of avoiding attacks by other humans, saber tooth tigers and woolly mammoths. Their adventure even has love when they encounter a woman (Rae Dawn Chong) from a more advanced tribe. One of our heroes lusts after her and she teaches him a thing or two about love and sex.

Everything here is done without actual dialogue. The characters speak to each other in an invented language with no subtitles and it all works perfectly. The characters were very well developed and less than halfway through the movie I truly cared about their quest. I even found myself rooting for the caveman romance. This was a great and very original film.

Four stars ****

Trailer

Director – Jean-Jacques Annaud

Run! Bitch Run! – Grindhouse? More like outhouse

Here we have a film that’s aspiring to be a grindhouse movie.

Two girls are missionaries. They’re directed to a town that “needs some religion”. This is followed by some unnecessary nudity. There’s a woman shown taking a shower before she opens the door only to turn the girls away. This sets the tone of this ridiculously stupid film.

The girls end up knocking on the door of a brothel. This gives the film more time to display some pointless nudity and sex scenes. The girls are suddenly captured by the brothel owners and made to endure a good amount of sex, violence and violent sex.

The more timid of the two girls (I couldn’t even tell you if the characters have names) is viciously raped and set out to run naked in the wild. We see several scenes of her running around naked. She then ends up in a hospital and of course comes back to take revenge.

Add a dash of non-existent cinematography, terrible acting and copious amounts of soft core nudity and you have a pointless waste of 90 minutes that was committed to celluloid (or probably digital film). At no point does the viewer care about these girls or feel that the villains are real. All we get is a cheap revenge plot that’s been done before (see I Spit On Your Grave). The ending is a pathetic attempt to try to shock the audience.

I really cannot recommend this film unless you have 90 free minutes that you’d like to fill up with some disjointed scenery of breasts and violence. If you really want your violence and sexuality I’d recommend watching Tarentino’s Death Proof instead. He makes a fine film within a notoriously bad genre. This film aspires to be grindhouse and ends up even worse.

No stars (not a single one deserved here)

Trailer

Director – Joseph Guzman

The Reader – Sex, Confusion and Nazi War Crimes?

The Reader begins with our main character Michael (Ralph Fiennes) as a middle aged man. We are briefly shown that he is divorced and that he has a strained relationship with his daughter.

The film then shows us a 15 year-old Michael (David Kross). Michael is lying sick in the street. He is picked up by a woman in her 30s named Hana (Kate Winslet). She takes care of him and they quickly develop a sexual relationship. Hana requests that Michael read to her before sex. This exchange of reading and sex continues for a whole summer. Young Michael falls in love with Hana during this time. Hana on the other hand seems detached and even refers to him as ‘kid’.

One day Hana suddenly disappears without warning. Michael is devastated.

We are then taken several years forward where Michael is a young law student. He is sitting in on the trial of some Nazi prison guards. One of them is Hana. A new complication is introduced as Michael knows something that may change her sentencing. Yet, his shame of their affair prevents him from speaking up. This seems to be how Michael gets back at Hana for deserting him.

The beginning is an almost pornographic focus on the taboo sexual relationship of our main characters. The focus then moves to the older Michael. We see how the sexual relationship along with Hana’s trial have turned him into a cold and withdrawn man. The film is concerned with relationships and confusion. Hana’s decision to work Nazis affects millions. Hana’s decisions also affect Michael which in turn affects his family.

The film is simultaneously about Nazi atrocities, the fantasy of forbidden love, strained relationships and the price of secrets. This combination ends up bogging down the narrative and confusing the message.

Two and half stars ** 1/2

Trailer

Director – Stephen Daldry

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – A thriller from Sweden

Lisbeth Salander is a 24-year-old goth and Sweden’s best hacker. She’s hired by his own employer to spy on Mikael Blomqvist, an ace reporter who has been framed and has 6 months until he has to serve jail time. Lisbeth feels he’s innocent and continues to spy on him.

Mikael is hired by an elderly man to solve the 40-year-old mystery of the disappearance of his 16-year-old niece.

These two will of course come together but before this happens we learn that Lisbeth is forced by the government to have a legal guardian. She has some adversity to overcome due to this. To give away what happens would be to spoil the story. I will simply say that we learn just what kind of person Lisbeth is as she overcomes her situations.

Mikael in the meantime struggles with solving the mystery. He comes upon some clues that others had not seen in the past, but is still at a loss. That is until Lisbeth comes into the picture. She’s a hacker who loves a puzzle and Mikael has quite a few. In addition to working well together there is an interesting chemistry between the two that continues to the very end of the film.

The pace of the film is odd. It starts slowly fleshing out our two characters in separate scenes until their stories come together. Once Lisbeth and Michael unite the film moves at a much faster pace and we are given several tense, thrilling scenes. The mystery is resolved using modern technology that looks more real than what’s seen in most films. The two actors are very good, especially Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth. This is the first of a trilogy and I’m looking forward to the next films.

Three and half stars ***1/2

Trailer

Director – Niels Arden Oplev

Greenberg – A despicable yet sympathetic man

Noah Baumbach gives us, Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller), a man with many problems. He just got out of a mental institution. He’s an unemployed carpenter/former musician. He is a New York resident that has been summoned to L.A. to take care of his brother’s house and dog while the brother and family are on vacation. The brother has an assistant, Florence, played naturally and realistically by Greta Gerwig. Roger is given her number so she can help him.

They meet and shortly after he calls her to go out for a beer. He goes to her house and accelerates things at an uncomfortable and awkward rate. Despite this Florence invites him to see her sing at a bar. What follows are a series of dates and sexual encounters. These often end with sarcasm and verbal abuse from Roger.

We also meet, Ivan (Rhys Ifans) who is often verbally abused by Roger yet remains his best friend.

The reason for Roger’s awfulness is due to a couple of things. He messed up the relationship with the love of his life. His musical career fell apart when he turned down a record deal for his band. This all leaves him a sarcastic, sad person who is living in the past. Roger’s treatment of Florence and Ivan show us a person that is despicable, yet sad. The explanation for this is stated literally in the film as,

“hurt people hurt people”

This statement encapsulates Roger’s behavior and motivations.

Ben Stiller plays a very different character from his usual roles and is excellent here. Rhys Ifans is a standout in the role of Ivan. Greta Gerwig plays a very realistic and sympathetic young woman. This is a great if at times uncomfortable film. It is very well acted and has a realistic conclusion.

4 stars ****

Trailer

Director Noah Baumbach

The Runaways – Sex, drugs and underage rock n’ roll

The Runaways tells the story of the 70s teenage all girl rock band of the same name with the focus on members Cherie Currie and Joan Jett. The film starts with a quick look into the tough life of Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning). We also have a brief scene with Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) at a guitar lesson where she is told that “girls don’t play electric guitar”

The film moves to a scene outside of a rock club where Joan meets sleazy record producer Kim Fowley (Chicago’s own Michael Shannon). She tells him she wants to start an all girl rock band. Fowley sees a great way to make money in this and he quickly puts a band together.

Fowley picks 15-year-old Cherie up at a club and makes her audition as the band’s singer without hearing her sing. He runs them through a gauntlet and teaches them how to play to a hostile audience full of hecklers. His training sessions make some of the most entertaining scenes. Kim sells the teenage girls as rough, tough objects of desire and sends them on tour in Japan. The obligatory scenes of sex and drugs are here along with the rock n’ roll performances.

We get brief glimpses of Cherie’s uncaring mother and her alcoholic father, but it’s never enough to make us fully sympathize with her. Kristen Stewart is an exact copy of Joan Jett, but we see no great struggle for her as a character. Joan goes on tour with her all girl band, their singer Cherie leaves and Joan continues onto a solo career. There’s not much more to her story. We know nothing of her family, her roots or what is driving her to succeed. There’s lot of rock here, but very little substance.

Two stars **

Trailer

Director – Floria Sigismondi

No review of The Greatest

I apologize everyone. I was not able to get into the screening of The Greatest as it sold out 15 minutes before I arrived so there will be no review unless I can get to another screening. I’m hoping to have a couple of new reviews up by Wednesday.

The Greatest – New review coming soon

I will be attending an advance screening of The Greatest on Monday night. Click here for the trailer.

I’ll post a review (short as always of course) on Monday night or Tuesday early morning (depending on how quickly I can squeeze in an update).

9 – Not the singin’ and dancin’ one. This one has rag doll robot thingies.

The animated CGI film 9 (1st feature film by Shane Acker) starts out with the creation of a small rag doll robot. It has the number 9 on its back. It seems some time has passed as the robot comes to life and walks awkwardly for the first time. The robot (9) looks out and sees the dead body of the man who created him. This is all very visually interesting and captivating.

Very quickly our hero now known as 9 meets his previous siblings that are numbered 1 thru 8. Then we get our conflict. Our little friends are ruled by 1, who prefers to hide from this world’s dangers. Some of the others oppose this idea. 9 is part of this opposition.

We learn that 1 through 9 are the last survivors in the post apocalypse of a 1940s world. Our characters divide and regroup as they have a series of battles with something only referred to as “the beast” then after that are even more battles with “the machine”. What is the beast? There’s an explanation as to where it came from, but never a good reason for why it’s hunting the characters. How about the machine? Well there’s an explanation for that as well, but ultimately it’s underwhelming. The final conclusion takes us from what started as a science fiction world to science fantasy. Science fantasy is not a bad thing, but just seems like an odd tone shift in this film.

The most fantastic thing here are the visuals. They are superb, even if at times overly complicated. The shortcomings and simplistic plot hold the film back. However, the depth of the animation, great voice acting and expressiveness of the characters’ faces create an engaging and spellbinding experience. I look forward to seeing Shane Acker perfect his craft.

Three stars ***

Trailer

Director – Shane Acker